King of Morning, Queen of Day

KING OF MORNING, QUEEN OF DAY

Copyright © 1991 by Ian McDonald

All rights reserved.

Published as an eBook in 2019 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., in association with the Zeno Agency LTD.

Originally published by Spectra.

ISBN 978-1-625674-15-9

Cover design by Dirk Berger

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Part One: Craigdarragh

Part Two: The Mythlines

Part Three: Coda Late Summer

Part Four: Shekinah

Afterwords

Thanks

About the Author

Also by Ian McDonald

PART ONE

CRAIGDARRAGH

We have followed too much

the devices and desires of our own hearts…

—The General Confession: Book of Common Prayer

To My Faery Lover

OH, WOULD THAT WE were many things,

My golden-shining love and I;

Bright-flashing scales, a pair of wings

That draw the moonlight down the sky,

Two hazel trees beside the stream

Wherein our fruit in autumn drop,

A trout, a stag, a wild swan’s dream,

An eagle cry from mountaintop.

For we have both been many things:

A thousand lifetimes we have known

Each other, and our love yet sings.

But there is more that I would own.

Oh, would that we could naked run

Through forests deep and forests fair,

Our breasts laid open to the sun,

Our flesh caressed by summer’s air,

And in some hidden, leafy glen

My striving body you would take;

Impale me on your lust and then

Me Queen of Daybreak you would make.

And we would dance and we would sing,

And we in passion’s fist would cry;

Loud with our love the woods would ring,

If we were lovers, you and I.

If we were lovers, I and you,

I would cast off all mortal ills

And you would take me, Shining Lugh,

To feast within the hollow hills.

For the world of men is filled with tears

And swift the night of science falls

And I would leave these tears and fears

To dance with you in Danu’s halls,

So let us cast our cares away

And live like bright stars in the sky,

Dance dream-clad till the break of day,

For we are lovers, you and I.

—Emily Desmond

Class 4a, Cross and Passion School

Emily’s Diary: February 14, 1913

HAIL TO THEE, ST. Valentine, Prince of Love. Hail to thee on this, thy festive day!

We, thy adoring servants, praise thee!

We stole the statue of St. Valentine from its niche in the corridor by the Chapel and smuggled it up to the dormitory. If the Sisters were ever to find out what we did to it we would all be expelled, every last one of us, but I have made all the girls take blood oaths of utter secrecy, and we will have it back in its rightful place before even Mother Superior comes on her rounds. At the last stroke of midnight, the first stroke of St. Valentine’s Day, we stood the statue on a chair we had placed on a table and decorated it with the snowdrops and crocuses I had instructed the others to collect in botany class. We placed a crown made from chocolate wrappers on his head and, with much giggling, Charlotte and Amy got the thing they had made out of stolen modelling clay and erected it in front of the statue. Then we all performed the St. Valentine’s dance in our déshabille and went up one at a time to kiss the clay tiling and dedicate ourselves to the service of love. Then we sat down in a circle around the statue to read, by the light of one small candle which we passed around, the love poems we had written. Everyone thought mine was the best, but then they always think my ideas are the best; the whole St. Valentine’s Day celebration was one of my ideas.

Charlotte told me that Gabriel O’Byrne, the groundsman’s son, had told her that he had been trying to give me a letter for over a week but hadn’t been able. I wonder, she said, what it’s about? and nodded at the clay thing she had made for St. Valentine.

I should wonder: as if I didn’t know, from the way Gabriel O’Byrne stops work every time I pass, and doffs his cap and smiles at me. All that waving and smiling. Well, she can just tell him I don’t want any letters from Gabriel the groundsman’s son. I don’t want his dirty little affections; I want, I deserve, better than him. I deserve a faery prince, a warrior hero, strong-thewed and iron-willed, with raven black hair and lips like blood.

Edward Garret Desmond’s Personal Diary: February 15, 1913

AFTER THREE WEEKS OF sleet, snow, and lowering clouds, last night the sky was at last sufficiently clear to permit me my first view of the newly discovered Bell’s Comet through the Craigdarragh eighteen-inch reflector. For all its doubtless charms and graces, County Sligo is not blessed with the most equable of climates for the astronomer; namely, those clear-as-crystal skies beloved of the astronomer-priests of ancient Mesopotamia and noble Greece. And since the notification of this object’s entrance into our theatre of interest in December last’s Irish Astronomical Bulletin, it has been a source of major frustration to me (my dear Caroline would declare that I have become positively ratty on the subject) that I alone of all the country’s—no! damn it! Europe’s astronomers—have been unable to observe the phenomenon. That is, until today. At about four o’clock, as I was taking my usual ill-tempered post-afternoon-tea turn about the rhododendron gardens, generally bemoaning the nation of Ireland and the county of Sligo in particular, its winds, weathers, and climates, bless me if the wind didn’t blow (capriciously as ever in this part of the globe), the clouds part, and a glorious golden late-winter radiance suffuse the countryside! Within half an hour the sky was clear blue all the way to the horizon, a sight so gladdening to the heart that I at once returned to the house and informed Mrs. O’Carolan that I would be taking supper in the observatory that evening. It was some time before I was able to locate the subject of my observations in the eighteen-inch reflector; the comet had moved across a considerable arc since first observed by Hubbard Pierce Bell of the Royal Observatory at Herstmonceux. Finally it lay squarely within my cross hairs and I was without doubt the only man in Ireland for whom this was a novelty.

In my excitement at finally being afforded the opportunity to observe Bell’s Comet, I had forgotten how cold the night would be on account of the clear sky. I was shivered to the very pith of my bones. But, oh! Most estimable woman! Most worthy servant! With typical foresight and wisdom, Mrs. O’Carolan came through the frost to provide me with rugs, comforters, a steady stream of bricks warmed in the kitchen range, and, most welcome of all, a bottle of potín, a present, she maintained, from the widows of the parish. Thus fortified, I returned to my labours with enthusiasm.

No tail had yet developed, Bell’s Comet being still beyond the orbit of our Earth. I noted positions, luminosity, apparent and proper motions in my observer’s notebook and made some sketches. On returning to the telescope, it seemed to me that the object’s luminosity had altered, a thing I at the time dismissed as a defect of vision in adapting to the Stygian blackness of space. By now the cold had confounded all Mrs. O’Carolan’s ramifications, and for the good of my health, I decided to take a series of timed photographic exposures through the telescope and withdraw indoors to the comforts of hearth and wife. I was familiar with the local meteorology, as an astronomer must be, and I knew that this clear, cold weather would linger for several days.

This morning, on developing the plate, I noticed the anomaly. To be certain that it was not an imperfection in the emulsion (a series of such imperfections had caused me to terminate my arrangement with Pettigrew and Rourke Photographic Suppliers of Sligo, a pretty bundle of rogues, indeed), I quickly produced a full set of prints from all the exposures. Patience is the keystone of professionalism; the amateur would have hurried the job, and in his haste smeared the photographs so badly as to render them worthless. I bided my time, and when the little alarm clock rang was therefore able to see immediately that what I had recorded was no photographic error, but an unprecedented, and quite extraordinary, astronomical phenomenon.

The track of Bell’s Comet was quite clear to see, arcing across the paths of the more familiar constellations. At regular intervals this arc was punctuated by what I can only describe, for want of a more elegant term, as blobs of light—concentrations of luminosity so intense they had actually burned away the photographic emulsion. Every other inch or so another of these blobs occurred at regular intervals along the comet’s track. For a full minute I was so astounded by my discovery as to be incapable of rational thought. Then I gathered my wits and concluded that Bell’s Comet must be emitting bursts of intense light. From the photographs, I calculated these to occur every twenty-eight minutes, a burst of light of such infinitesimally short duration and brilliance as to assume the luminosity of a major planet. Quite extraordinary!

Leafing through Hubbard Pierce Bell’s article, I was unable to find the slightest mention of any fluctuation in luminosity. Such a phenomenon could not have been overlooked; the only possible conclusion was that it had not at that time occurred.

Delicious irony! That I, the last astronomer in Europe to observe Bell’s Comet, should be the discoverer of its most fascinating secret! I have dashed off a hasty letter to Sir Greville Adams at Dunsink Observatory claiming the discovery; this evening, God willing, I will observe again.

Is it unprofessional (and, more to the point, unscientific), I find myself asking, to feel elation at the possibility of being the discoverer of a major astronomical event? (Might even the comet be renamed Desmond’s Comet? I would even consider double-barrelling acceptable, but only as a last resort: Comet Bell-Desmond.) And there you have it. A quite inappropriately proprietorial attitude toward a lump of stellar matter! Terrible indeed to be reduced to an excitable schoolboy by the vainglorious thought of being the toast of the astronomical societies.

To matters more mundane, and sobering. Typical of Caroline to puncture my mood of ebullience by choosing luncheon today as her platform to raise the unpleasant issue of Emily’s schooling. Now, I do not deny that Emily’s problems at Cross and Passion are important, and that I, as a father, should be deeply concerned with the improvement of her academic standards; indeed, it is of paramount importance if daughter is to follow father down the noble highway of science. However, there is a time and a place for everything, and Caroline’s insistence that we discuss this at length over luncheon so soured my mood of geniality that it is quite impossible for me to develop the tranquility of mind necessary for the proper contemplation of the heavens. Priorities! Like mother, like daughter. Neither, alas, knows the importance of priorities.

Emily’s Diary: March 6, 1913

I HEARD THEM AGAIN last night, I’m sure I did—the Hounds of the Gods, out there among the trees. I heard them give tongue, like the baying of dire wolves it was, as they caught the scent of their quarry. I heard the cries of their faery master. Like the songs of nightingales they were, sweet and lovely. Rathfarnham Woods rang with their song. I imagined the woodland creatures fleeing from their footsteps: Make way, make way, make way, for the Wild Hunt of the Ever-Living Ones! But what could have been their quarry, out there in the rain-lashed wood? What was the scent the hounds tasted that set them baying so? Surely nothing so ignoble as the vulgar fox or badger that O’Byrne sometimes shoots when they raid the school chicken runs, nothing as common as that. Perhaps the noble stag. That would be quarry worthy of the Riders of the Sidhe. Maybe one of Lord Palmerstown’s herds, or, is it possible? a faery stag from the pages of legend and story, the stag that is hunted and killed each night by the Wild Hunt only to rise again with the morning sun? Or, most romantic of all, one of their own kind, a manhunt, a faery warrior fleet-footed and daring, laughing as he slips tirelessly between the trees of Rathfarnham, making sport of the hounds and the spearmen dogging his footsteps. Charlotte in the next bed asked what did I think I was doing, sitting up all hours of the night looking out the window, didn’t I know that I’d get in trouble if Sister Therese caught me? And just what, she asked, was I looking for out there in the pitch-blackness anyway?

The hunt of the Ever-Living Ones, chasing a golden-antlered stag through the forest of the night with their red-eared hounds. Listen! Can you hear them, baying out there in the night? Can you hear the jingle of the silver bells on their horses’ harnesses?

Charlotte scrambled out of the sheets and knelt beside me on my bed. We looked out through the barred window and listened as hard as we could. I was certain I heard the call of a hound, very far off, as if the Night Hunt had passed by and moved onward. I asked Charlotte if she had heard anything.

I think so, she said. Yes, I think I heard something, too.

March 12, 1913

The Royal Irish Astronomical Society

Dunsink Observatory

County Dublin

My Dear Dr. Desmond,

A few lines of admiration and appreciation (and, I must admit, envy) on your success concerning the periodicity of Bell’s Comet. For once the quixotic climate of that wretched county of yours has done you a service: interest having waned while you languished beneath your blanket of Celtic mist, yours was indeed the sole eyepiece in the United Kingdom to be trained on the comet at the precise moment it began to display its unique behaviour. Some gossoon from some wretched little city-state university in Germany has lodged a counterclaim; quite frankly, I suspect it is purest jealousy. These Huns will attempt anything to outdo His Britannic Majesty. So, the claim is yours, indisputably and unequivocally, and as a result, all those telescopes that turned away in search of celestial pastures new are turning back with wonderful haste to Bell’s Comet. Alas, your name will not be joined with that of the comet’s discoverer, but your fame, I think, will be the more enduring for having disclosed an unprecedented astronomical phenomenon. A flashing comet! Quite remarkable!

I have checked your calculations of rotation, angular momentum, velocity, and periodicity against my own observations (forgive my presumption in so doing), and have found that my figures correspond with yours to a high degree of accuracy. However, I am at a loss to furnish some hypothesis which might account for a rotational period of twenty-eight minutes but a maximum luminosity period of only two and three-eighths seconds. In our orderly universe, as strictly controlled and timetabled as Great Southern Railways, such paradoxical behaviour is deeply offensive to we gentlemen of astronomy. Any hypothesis you might provide to explain this phenomenon would find wide general appreciation, and, should such a time arrive when you might wish to make it public, the lecture theatre at the Society is at your disposal. For the meantime I once again congratulate you on your achievement and encourage you to return to your studies.

Yours Sincerely,

Sir Greville Adams

Emily’s Diary: March 18, 1913

ALONE IN MY SMALL bower, I write, a dell among the woods of Rathfarnham. A secret place, a private place, a place where I am enfolded by tree branches like caring arms. A woman in green; this is my leafy bower. It took me a long time to find my place among the trees on the hillside, so close to Cross and Passion that I can almost reach out to touch the chimney pots, yet whole worlds away from Latin and Greek and French irregular verbs. Here I can be on my own, all alone, and lie down on the soft green moss and let my mind roam. Out across the land it goes, ripping up the fields and farms and houses of Rathfarnham, sowing in their place tall green trees—noble oaks and beeches. Look! There goes Cross and Passion, chimney pots and all, torn up and thrown away. Where it was is a gentle glen lit by shafts of soft sunlight, and deer look up, startled nostrils twitching, sniffing the air for the scent of the hunter. And here in my green bower, I am the poet–queen, dreaming of odes and lays and love songs, idylls and elegies and laments for mighty sons fallen in gory battle.

If the Sisters ever found me here, there’d be such trouble. But then Emily’s always in trouble, isn’t she? Trouble trouble trouble. They just can’t leave me alone to be and do what I want. Well, only one more week in that cold old dormitory that smells funny, as if things have been locked up and–left to die and rot, and then I’ll be home for two weeks. Two weeks, such bliss! I know I’ll miss the other girls, but in Craigdarragh the daffodils will be tall and golden on the lawn and the blackthorn will be blooming, and the may, and the alder, there will be birds singing in Bridestone Wood and all the trees will be putting on their newest green, all for me. I’m glad I’m spring born, when the earth is being born, too. I love it the years when Easter falls so I can have my birthday at Craigdarragh. I wonder, will Mummy have a party for me? I wonder, if I asked her nicely, would she allow boys to come? Parties are no fun without boys.

From the Private Notebooks of Constance Booth–Kennedy: March 23, 1913

THE SPRING IN DUBLIN! Most miraculous of seasons! Especially after the dreariness of February. Honestly, it never seemed to end this year. Twelve months of February; wind, cold, and sleet. Dismal. But how uplifting to see the early blossom in St. Stephen’s Green and the new, bold green on the trees along Merrion Road. Even that Dublin wind, which, blowing in off the Irish Sea in midwinter, can strip the black lead from the palings around Trinity College, seemed as gentle and refreshing as a zephyr. And I am glad to see that Caroline is as refreshed and renewed by the change of season and scenery as I. Her spirits visibly rose by the mile on the train to Amiens Street Station, and since arriving in the capital, why, what a transformation! Once again (and not before time, I think), she is the gay and vivacious creature I recall so well from school days. I know for a certainty she will be the toast of all Dublin at the reading tonight: here’s to Mrs. Caroline Desmond, the lady poetess of Drumcliffe! Her visit to the Gaelic Literary League is long overdue. Edward, though quite a dear in his own wee way, can be the most infuriating of men, especially when he goes into one of those trancelike states of his and, for days on end, shuffles around the house and gardens in carpet slippers muttering arcane abracadabras which we are meant to treat with a hushful reverence due deep musings upon the higher mysteries of the universe. This time it is some aery–faery nonsense about travellers from another star riding through space on the tail of a comet. No wonder poor Caroline was so easy to prise away from home. The man is getting worse, I declare.

A leisurely dinner at the hotel with a few friends from the Literary League, followed by a short, pleasant walk to University College, and finally, the triumphant reading of her latest collection, should restore a proper perspective to Caroline’s life. Willie will be there. I must introduce him to Caroline. I’m sure he’ll be quite entranced by her. Perhaps the next time he is over in the West I might arrange for a little soiree at Rathkennedy for Caroline, poet to poet. The atmosphere in Craigdarragh is so musty and stifling and scientific.

March 29, 1913

Craigdarragh

Drumcliffe

County Sligo

My Dear Lord Fitzgerald,

Many thanks for your letter of congratulation. It is most gracious of you, especially as I consider myself to have, in a sense, robbed you of your dues; after all, but for your winter sojourn in Nice, it could as easily have been yourself observing through the Clarecourt telescope as I through the Craigdarragh.

Therefore, I feel it only politic to inform you, a fellow astronomer and close colleague, that I have developed a theory on the nature of Bell’s Comet which, I may say without fear of exaggeration, will rock the entire scientific community to its core, not merely the Irish Astronomical Society. Indeed, I have been invited to address my theories to that body on the eighteenth of April. However, with regard to the solidarity between us as brother astronomers in this benighted outpost of the Empire, I feel it is only proper that I should share this hypothesis with you before facing that lions’ den of whippersnappers and ossified intellects in Dublin. Might I therefore extend to you an invitation to visit us here at Craigdarragh; would the fifteenth of April allow sufficient time to amend diaries and make arrangements? Please let me know at your earliest convenience if this date will not serve; it will be no difficulty to arrange another.

I conclude by expressing my fondest hopes that you will be able to visit our humble home. Both Caroline and I extend the warmest welcome, and, as ever, our droughts and prayers are always for your good self and the Lady Alexandra, who is as close to our hearts as to yours,

I remain,

Your Obedient Servant,

Edward Garret Desmond, Ph.D.

Emily’s Diary: April 2, 1913

CRAIGDARRAGH. SINCE CROSSING THE threshold I have gone around hugging every wall, window, and door in the place! Mrs. O’Carolan can hardly believe what she is seeing; she goes around muttering under her breath that she always knew it ran in families. Dear Mrs O’C! I almost hugged her when I saw her waiting on the platform at Sligo Station. Oh dear, the look she would have given me!

It is all as I imagined it on the train up from Dublin. Complete and perfect in every detail, the people, the faces, the places. The people: Mrs. O’Carolan fat and fusty and kind; Mummy a poet and an artist and a tragic queen out of legend all rolled into one; Daddy worried and hurried and so busy with his telescopes and sums I’m sure he’s already forgotten I’m here. And the places: the red of the early rhododendrons, the blue sea, and beyond it, like a cloud, purple Knocknarea. Woods, mountains, waterfall: wonderful! Today I visited the Bridestone up above the woods on the slopes of Ben Bulben. How good it was to be alone and at peace. Up there, with only the wind and the song of the blackbird for company, it is like nothing has changed for a thousand years. It was easy to imagine Finn MacCool and his grim Fianna warriors hunting the leaping stag with their red-eared hounds through the woodland glens, or the sunlight glinting from the spear points of the Red Branch Heroes as they marched to avenge a slain comrade.

Perhaps reality was too much for me after months with nothing to call upon but my imagination: I could have sworn that I was not alone as I came down from the Bridestone through the green woods; that there were shadowy shapes flitting from tree to tree, unseen when I looked for them, giggling at my foolishness. Ah, well, I have always thought it was an enchanted faery place.

The Bushes

Stradbally Road

Sligo

Dear Mrs. Desmond,

Thank you for inviting Grace to the surprise parry you are holding in honour of Emily’s fifteenth birthday; I am delighted to accept on her behalf. She is looking forward to the twelfth with mounting excitement. A grand and gay time will be had by all, I am certain.

With regard to transport out to Craigdarragh, I have arranged for Grace to travel with the O’Rahilly twins, Jasmine and Briony, in the O’Rahillys’ motor car. Reilly the chauffeur will see to it that they get themselves up to no mischief and are home by a decent hour.

Yours sincerely,

Janet Halloran

April 9, 1913

Clarecourt

Bailisodare

County Sligo

My Dear Edward,

I shall be only too delighted to accept your invitation to Craigdarragh House, and am honoured to learn that I will be the first recipient of the most eagerly awaited event in the astronomical world at the moment, the secret of Bell’s Comet.

However, I fear that the fifteenth is impossible for me. I am required at the House of Lords for the reading of a piece of legislation close to my heart, the Irish Home Rule Bill, and what with trains and steam packets and the like, I must leave on or around the fourteenth. Would the twelfth be acceptable? Please let me know. I am most eager to visit, as this business in London will prevent me from attending the meeting of the Royal Irish Astronomical Society. My intention is to travel on the train which will arrive at Sligo Station at 6:16 P.M. I look forward to seeing you then. Until the twelfth, then, my warmest regards to you, your wife, and your charming daughter.

Sincerely,

Maurice: Clarenorris

Dr. Edward Garret Desmond’s Personal Diary: April 12, 1913

ANOTHER DOMESTIC FURORE! HONESTLY, I am beginning to feel I am no longer master of my own household! I bring the Marquis of Clarenorris home from the station and what do I find? My home and place of work overrun by shrieking, silly schoolgirls! Caroline’s idea—a surprise birthday tea for Emily. Result, the house is in an uproar. Why was I not informed of this? I am quite certain that I notified Caroline of the changed dates of Lord Fitzgerald’s visit. Sometimes she seems to go out of her way to upset my plans and arrangements.

To his endless credit, Lord Fitzgerald showed no embarrassment at the girlish proceedings and indeed took the whole debacle in exceedingly good spirit; nevertheless, I was only too glad to hurry him out to the observatory, where, with the aid of telescope and photographs, I took the opportunity to explain to him my hypothesis concerning this object erroneously named Bell’s Comet. This he received openly and without prejudice, asking me perceptive and informed questions. However, it is more than the Marquis’s favourable ear I must win. I have need of his considerable fortune also, if the second stage of my investigations, which I have tentatively christened Project Pharos, is to be brought to fruition.

Domestic memo: I must remind Mrs. O’Carolan to waken Lord Fitzgerald at six thirty and provide him with a substantial breakfast; the worthy Marquis has far to go tomorrow. Also, I must have a man up from the town to look at the electricals: tonight’s unexpected current failure was somewhat disconcerting, and judging by the shrieks and cries from the drawing room, caused great distress to the young folk at the party.

Memorandum from Mrs. Caroline Desmond to Mrs. Maire O’Carolan

DEAR MRS. O’C,

Another one! Last night, just after supper, for the space of a good thirty minutes or so. Now I know, Mrs. O’C, that you know as much as I do about the mysteries of electricity, which is precisely nothing, but you have the advantage over me in knowing virtually every soul between here and Enniskillen. Would it be possible for you to find among this host of acquaintances and relatives someone who could come and have a look at the wiring or the junction box or whatever is the matter with the infernal thing? I do not, positively not, want a repeat of Tuesday’s catastrophe. First Emily storms out in tears and tantrums muttering how embarrassing it all was, little children’s stuff, and how she’d wanted boys there, like an adult party; not cakes and ginger ale and blindman’s bluff. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth, indeed, Mrs. O’C! And as if that wasn’t enough, the lights go out and I am left trying to calm a roomful of hysterical, screaming girls. The trials of parenthood, Mrs. O’C. That aside, Mrs. O’C, do give it a try, will you? Edward promised to get a man up from town to do something on Wednesday, but you know how utterly useless he is about anything that isn’t a million miles away in the depths of space. If you can’t sort it out, it’ll mean my tedious brother Michael calling out to have a look and going on and on and on about the grand all-electric future the Sligo, Leitrim, Fermanagh, and South Donegal Electrical Supply Company is going to provide for us. The man cannot even change an incandescent bulb!

Incidentally, only cold meats and salads for supper, if you please; Emily and I will be over at Rathkennedy House all of today. We hope to be back here by about eight o’clock.

Excerpts from Dr. Edward Garret Desmond’s Lecture to the Royal Irish Astronomical Society; Trinity College, Dublin, April 18, 1913

THEREFORE, LEARNED GENTLEMEN, IT is clearly impossible for these fluctuations in luminosity to be due to the differing albedos of the spinning surfaces of Bell’s Comet, as my mathematical proofs have demonstrated. The only—I repeat, only—explanation for this unprecedented phenomenon is that the emissions of light are artificial in origin.

(General consternation among the Learned Fellows)

If artificial, then we must address ourselves to the disturbing truth that they must, must, gentlemen, be the works of intellects, minds, Learned Fellows, immeasurably superior to our own. It has long been held that we are not the unique handiwork of our Creator, the possibility of great civilizations upon the planets Mars and Venus, and even beneath the forbidding surface of our own moon, has been many times mooted, even in this very lecture hall, by respected gentlemen of science and learning.

(Heckler: Intoxicated gentlemen of absinthe and bourbon! Laughter.)

What I am proposing, if I may, Learned Fellows, is a concept of a whole order of magnitude greater than even these lofty speculations. I am proposing that this artifact, for artificial it must be, is evidence of a mighty civilization beyond our solar system, upon a world of the star Altair, for it is from that quadrant of the sky that the object called Bell’s Comet originates. Having ascertained that the object was indeed no lifeless chunk of stellar matter, I attempted to ascertain its velocity. As the Learned Fellows are doubtless all too aware, it is difficult in the extreme to calculate with absolute mathematical precision the velocity of any astronomical phenomenon; nevertheless, with persistence and application, I estimated the object’s velocity to be in the close proximity of three hundred and fifty miles per second.

(Murmurs of amazement from the Learned Fellows)

Moreover, during the four–week period during which I kept the object under daily observation, or as regularly as the climate of County Sligo would permit, this velocity decreased from three hundred and fifty miles per second to one hundred and twenty miles per second. Clearly, the object is decelerating, and from such behaviour only one conclusion is possible—that the object is a spatial vehicle of some form, despatched by the inhabitants of Altair to establish contact with the inhabitants of our Earth.

(Heckler: Oh, come now!)

While the exact design of such a spatial vehicle is beyond my conception, I have some tentative suggestions with regard to its motive power. That most estimable Frenchman, M. Jules Verne, has written most imaginatively…

(Heckler: Not one half as imaginatively as you, sir!)

…thank you, sir, of how a great space gun might propel a capsule around the Moon. Intriguing though this notion is, it is quite impractical as a means to journey from Altair to our Earth. The velocity imparted by such a space gun would not be sufficient for the journey to be completed within the lifetimes of the voyagers.

(Heckler: Will this lecture be completed within the lifetimes of the Learned Fellows? Laughter.)

Therefore, I would suggest, if I might do so without interruption, Learned Fellows, that the vehicle accelerates and decelerates through a series of self-generated explosions, of titanic force, which propel the vehicle through transtellar space at the colossal velocities necessary to traverse such an immense distance. Of course, such star-crossing velocities must be shed to rendezvous with our Earth at the completion of the journey, and I would suggest that the immense flarings of light we have all witnessed are the explosions by which this vehicle slows its headlong flight.

(Heckler: Are we in any seriousness meant to accept these fanciful vapourings over the Astronomer Royal’s reasoned and cogent arguments?)

Learned Fellows, I cannot with any degree of scientific certainty speculate…

(Catcalls, booing. Heckler; Scientific certainty? What scientific certainty?)

…what such a propulsive explosive might be; certainly no earthly explosive would possess sufficient power for its weight to be a practical fuel for such a transtellar journey.

(Heckler: Oh, certainly.’)

However, I have conducted a spectral analysis of the light from Bell’s Comet and found it to be identical to the light of our own familiar Sun.

(Heckler: Of course: it’s reflected sunlight, man!)

Could it be that extrasolar stellanauts of Altair have learned to duplicate artificially the force that kindles the Sun itself and tarried it to power their vehicles?

(Heckler: Could it be that the Member from Drumcliffe has learned to duplicate artificially the spirit of the mountain dew and used it to fuel his somewhat overwrought imagination? Uproarious laughter.)

Learned Fellows… gentlemen… please, if you would pay me the courtesy of your attention. Since it is now clear that we are not unique in God’s universe, it is therefore of paramount importance, even urgency, that we communicate with these representatives of a civilization immeasurably nobler than our own. Therefore, in September of this year, when Bell’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth…

(Heckler: "I don’t believe it! Learned Fellows… a fact! A cold, hard fact!")

… I will attempt to signal the presence of intelligent life on this world (laughter, growing louder) to the extrasolar intelligences of Altair.

(General laughter and derision: cries of Poppycock, Shame, Withdraw. A rain of pamphlets falls upon the platform. The president calls for order. There being none, he declares the meeting adjourned.)

Emily’s Diary: April 22, 1913

IT IS ALL MOST unpleasant. Ever since Daddy’s return from Dublin there has been the most horrid atmosphere in the house. He has locked himself up in his observatory and works as a man possessed, growling like an angry dog at the least annoyance. Mummy has warned me not to disturb him. She need not fear—I have no intention of going near him until his mood has sweetened. Whatever it was that happened in Dublin, it has so soured the atmosphere that my Easter has been quite spoiled.

Well, maybe not completely. Oh, this sounds foolish, this sounds like whimsy, but last night I looked out of my bedroom window and saw lights up on Ben Bulben, like the lights of many lanterns there on the slopes of the mountain, as if there were people dancing there by lantern light. When I was young, Mrs. O’Carolan told me that years ago, when a betrothal was announced, the people of the parish used to celebrate it by dancing in a ring around the Bridestone and the man and the woman would plight their troth by joining hands through the hole in the middle of the stone. Could what I saw have been a faery wedding? Could noble lords and ladies and moon–silver stallions have stood around to watch by faery light as the King of the Morning and the Queen of the Daybreak joined hands through the ancient troth stone? How wonderful, how romantic! As I leaned out to watch, I imagined I could hear the whinnying of those faery horses, and the playing of the elfin harpers and the gay laughter of the Host of the Air. I do believe that there are strange and magical things in Bridestone Wood! Real magic, magic of stone and sky and sea, the magic of the Old Folk, the Good Folk who dwell in the Halls Beneath the Hills, a magic we see, and feel, and touch… but just for a moment, and then it is gone again. How easily such things are lost! How easily the cold light of day dissolves away the magic of the night, like mist. This will be my last night in Craigdarragh; tomorrow I must return again to Cross and Passion. Though I love the other girls, even now I am counting the hours until I am home again in the greenwoods of Craigdarragh, under the wise shadow of ancient Ben Bulben, where the faery folk will be waiting for me.

April 26, 1913

Craigdarragh

Drumcliffe

County Sligo

My Dear Lord Fitzgerald,

I am deeply, deeply grateful for your letter of the twenty–fourth inst. in which Your Lordship pledged support for my project to communicate with the transtellar vehicle from Altair. I am glad that Your Lordship was spared the embarrassment of my humiliation before the Society: Christians to the lions, my dear Clarenorris, were none such as I in that lecture theatre. Yet, like those early martyrs, my faith is undiminished, my zeal for the successful persuance of Project Pharos is greater than ever: we shall teach these arrogant whippersnappers a thing or two when the star folk come! And I am delighted, no less honoured, to hear that Your Lordship has submitted a letter of support for my propositions to Sir Greville Adams, though I regret that, for all Your Lordship’s cogent argument, it will achieve little: the gentlemen of Dublin are stunted in mind—intellectual dwarves compared to we revolutionary thinkers of the West.

Now ensured of support, we may proceed apace with Project Pharos. Enclosed are blueprints for the signalling device. Nevertheless, I will here summarise in my own hand the principles of said device, lest my enthusiasm in draughting the designs has rendered my diagrams a trifle hard to comprehend.

The device takes the form of a cross of floating pontoons supporting electrically powered lanterns. The cross must necessarily be of immense size: I have estimated that to be visible from the perigee position, the arms will have to be five miles in diameter. This of course necessitates the use of the pontoons. An artifact of such dimensions could never be constructed on land, but on sea it is a relatively simple task to construct on such a scale, and possesses the additional benefit of the signal being clearly distinguishable from the humbler lamps of civilization, namely, Sligo town. Electrical supply for the pontoons can be cheaply provided by my brother-in-law, Mr. Michael Barry, of the Sligo, Leitrim, Fermanagh, and South Donegal Electrical Supply Company. How useful it is to have relations in positions of influence!

Here, Your Lordship, I must beg leave to conclude. I once again thank you for your kind patronage of this experiment, which will surely be regarded by history as one of the epochal events of the millennium. I will keep Your Lordship closely informed of further developments, particularly with regard to the blueprints, which are in the hands of Gilbey, Johnson, and O’Brien, Architects, of Sligo town; and also of my efforts to compile a code with which to signal the presence of guiding intelligence